Babies are forcibly kept in their beds while in coronavirus isolation wards in public hospitals in Hong Kong for their own “safety and well-being,” Hong Kong health officials said on Wednesday.
“Generally speaking, the hospital will only consider applying physical restraint to pediatric patients for the safety and well-being of the patient,” the Hong Kong Hospital Authority said in a statement on March 17.
The agency, which manages all Hong Kong government hospitals, issued the statement in response to growing reports last week that Hong Kong’s public hospitals physically restricted babies to beds and forced children as young as five to wear diapers during the mandatory quarantine in the isolation of the coronavirus departs from its parents.
The Hong Kong government has determined a strict containment protocol for residents who test positive for Chinese coronavirus.
“Anyone with a positive test for the virus should go to the hospital, while their close contacts must enter the government-administered quarantine facilities for up to 14 days,” reported CNN on Wednesday. Parents with a positive coronavirus test must decide whether to quarantine “and send their children to the hospital alone” or, if their children test positive, “accompany them to the hospital and run the risk of infection”.
One of these mothers, referred to by CNN as Ariel, told the news site that she was recently forced to commit her two young children to a public hospital in Hong Kong with asymptomatic cases of coronavirus.
“Ariel joined her children about a day after their admission, after spending hours on the phone trying to navigate the bureaucracy of a major healthcare system and allay the fears of their crying son,” according to the report. “The brothers – 5 and 1 years old and both asymptomatic – wore vests tied to the bed to contain them. They were covered in dirt and both wore diapers, even the five-year-old. “
A hospital nurse told Ariel that restraint systems and diapers “were standard practice because hospitals do not have a labor reserve to care for all children with Covid-19 [coronavirus] and want to limit the risk to the team. “
Based in Hong Kong South China Morning Post reported an account that directly mirrored Ariel’s on March 17.
In a Facebook message, it was alleged that two brothers, aged one and five, were detained, left without washing and without changing clothes. The boys’ mother, who had been sent to the quarantine facility in Penny’s Bay, said she was finally allowed to visit them after repeatedly pressuring the Department of Health and its Health Protection Center, only to find them crying in the streets. beds surrounded by corn flakes, rice and other food scraps.
Hong Kong, a city with more than 7 million inhabitants, has reported about 11,300 cases and 200 deaths from the Chinese coronavirus to date, according to official government data. The city government began imposing “ambush-style” blockades in several neighborhoods and housing blocks in Hong Kong in January to curb the spread of new cases of locally detected coronaviruses. Short-term orders require all residents in the affected area to undergo mandatory coronavirus testing and prohibit residents from leaving their homes, unless they have a negative coronavirus test result.
At least one resident of the Sham Shui Po area of Hong Kong was reportedly trapped inside a hair salon overnight after being caught off guard by a lock in February. The same block temporarily arrested a ten-year-old girl inside another hair salon in the area. The girl’s mother left her to cut her hair and left the salon to buy food, hoping to return minutes later. Local authorities issued an order to block Sham Shui Po before the mother could return, however, effectively isolating the girl from her parents.
“After [Hong Kong] The Department of Internal Affairs became aware of the situation, the girl was tested and had her information recorded, so she was allowed to go out with her mother at our discretion ”, said a representative of the municipal government at the time.